


Minerals in the Soil

by sirrylot



Category: DCU
Genre: Character Study, Gen, ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-06 08:16:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirrylot/pseuds/sirrylot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He still has nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Minerals in the Soil

He still has nightmares.

Well, to be honest, they never actually stopped.

For the first few years directly After, he had Bruce. He would slip out of his room in the dead of night and quietly creep into Bruce's huge bed, would curl up next to his newly adoptive father, wouldn't let himself cry because that would be weak and Bruce isn't weak, and definitely wouldn't tolerate the weakness of his ward. Bruce never said anything about it and lets it continue.  
But then he turned thirteen and was suddenly too old to find comfort in others and too much of a superhero to accept hugs and fingers through his hair and the silent support of older people. So he suffered them by himself in his dark room and muffled his sobs and avoids Bruce and Alfred's eyes in the morning. The frequency of his nightmares wanes over the years but that doesn't less their impact or their vividness or the fact that he can never breathe afterwards and he's left crying and shaking with a sharp ache in his chest and a longing for his mother to tuck him in and hum soft lullabies while his father sits by and tells him wild stories about their early adventures in the circus.

Time hasn't lessened how much he misses them.

Now they only happen on the longer nights—the ones where everything has gone to shit and he can't stop seeing the faces of every person he couldn't save. When every bone is creaking, every muscle is screaming, and the loneliness looms in every shadow.

On those nights, after he wakes up, he lays in the dark for hours and can't help but let everything that's been building up flood in as torrential downpours. He thinks about the friends he's lost and the bad things he’s helped cause and the actions he could have taken. He's hit with the guilt of never remembering, never letting himself remember or think but just do. He's a follower—follows Bruce, follows Clark. He has nothing, is nothing.

What good is he doing, here, in this ugly sister of Gotham? No one wants him there, he's better off returning to New York. Or Gotham, more like—to the ten year old he fled from, to the the family he never sees, to his recovering little brother. To the man that raised him and the city that built him.

But he doesn't go back, never does, no matter how much he thinks about it.

So he moves on and hates himself for everything, hates himself for being weak, hates himself for every time he's been too slow or too fast, hates himself because now—twenty years later—he can picture every trajectory and every move that could have saved his parents, he can picture the precautions he should have insisted they'd taken, the words he should have said, and he hates himself because he can never see them again. Not like Tim can see Kon and Bart and Cassie again, not like Bruce can mourn over the case of a once-dead boy, not like that.

And in his nightmares he can still hear the rope snapping. He can still see their faces, terrified, staring up at him. His locked muscles and the scream stuck in his throat, the tears that don't fall until he's alone, the dread and the grief, the darkness that doesn't ebb away, the horror when he gets down and realizes that there's no hope they're gone they're dead why didn't he do anything say anything he could have saved them could still be at Haly's, could still be surrounded by the mismatched family of freaks and animals with the elephant that still remembers him, the clowns that taught him bad puns, the strong man that helped him with his long division, the bearded lady that gave him his sense of rebellion.

Haly's Circus is still ingrained deep within his bones, and every brightly lit memory makes him miss it. It makes him miss being eight and makes him want his parents and it makes his heart aches and makes him wish the nightmares would _stop_. It makes him regret being a horrible brother to Jason and later overcompensating with Tim and never getting to know Stephanie and giving Damian too much hope. It makes him regret everything he's done, every person he's hurt, every family he's torn apart. He feels the guilt of the destruction he's aided in, the ones he couldn't be there for, the things he could never do. He hates himself because—because he's a bad person, not even worthy to be considered a hero.

And when those thoughts ultimately invade his mind, he can't help but wonder how ashamed his parents would be of him.

So he rolls over and screws his eyes shut and tries to focus on every good thing in his life, which never works because suddenly everything he’s done is thrown in sharp relief and the Bad overshadows the Good. The darkness presses in and seeps into his cracks and he's left blind and fumbling without the stars to guide his way.

And, without even that, he gives in and sits in his dark room in his dark city with his dark thoughts and lets it eat him whole.


End file.
